| History | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name |
|
| Owner | Kerala Shipping Corporation |
| Builder | Marinens Hovedverft, Horten, Norway |
| Cost | 5.81 crores |
| Launched | 5 September 1966 |
| Identification | IMO number: 6706412 |
| Fate | Disappeared without trace 500 km off Margao, July 1979 |
| Notes | Bulk Carrier |
MV Kairali was a bulk carrier, owned by Kerala Shipping Corporation (KSC). She disappeared with her crew of 49 and 20,000 tonnes of iron ore on 3 July 1979 while sailing from Margao, India to Rostock, Germany, via Djibouti.
The ship was initially built by Marinens Hovedverft in Norway and named as Oscarsord. The Kerala Shipping Corporation (KSC) purchased the ship for a sum of 5.81 crores (58,810,000 Indian rupees or USD 7,300,000 at the time) [1] and renamed as Kairali.
MV Kairali sailed from Margao on 30 June 1979. [2] The ship was travelling to Rostock, Germany via Djibouti with 20,538 tonnes of iron ore. There were communications from and to the ship on 1st, 2nd, and 3 July 1979 through the Bombay Radio, the official agency to communicate messages to and from the ship. The last message received from the ship was on 3 July 1979 at 8:00 pm. On 11 July 1979 Mitcots, Kairali’s shipping agents in Djibouti, reported to KSC that the ship had not reported at Djibouti for fuelling on 8 July 1979 as per her schedule.
There was a delay in the search effort, which started only on 16 July 1979. The Indian Navy was alerted and undertook reconnaissance flights in the area. After making several flights in the area from where Kairali had sent the last message, they gave up search operations. The inquiry conducted by the Indian Navy and Lloyd's of London declared Kairali missing some 500 miles off Margao.
The exact reason the ship went missing is still unknown. The following causes have been attributed by the relatives of crew members and people who worked in shipping industry
Kairali was sailing with a cargo of iron ore in the month of July, which is a peak monsoon month. In all probability the vessel may have loaded cargo with high moisture content and possibly exceeding the TML. This may have given rise to a condition were the cargo may have liquefied and eventually causing the vessel to capsize.
As per a crew member who was working for Kairali, the ship which had a capacity of 19,000 tonnes, allegedly carried 20,500 tonnes of iron ore during the voyage in total disregard of safety norms. Also the mandatory process of balancing the cargo after it was loaded was not followed. This would have caused the cargo to shift in rough waves and eventually she could have sunk in high waves. [3]
There is an allegation that the radar of the ship was under repair and Captain Mariyadas Joseph of MV Kairali refused to set sail on the morning of 3 July. But he was forced to commence the journey on the evening of the same day without repairing the radar. [4] [ unreliable source? ]
Owing to bad weather and rough waves the ship may have broken into pieces and sunk in high seas.
The ship may have been subject to a hijacking by pirates and the crew members taken to some uninhabited islands to fend for themselves, while the ship was taken to another location. As the ship was rumoured to have a faulty radar the pirates could not be detected before they attacked the vessel. [5]
There was a delay of about 12 days in starting the search operations. The delay was inexplicable given that the captain and headquarters exchanged a routine message every noon during the voyage.
The ship's disappearance was publicly announced only after a Kerala Shipping Corporation agent in Djibouti contacted the company's headquarters in Kochi on 11 July, informing them of the ship's failure to arrive. The vessel was supposed to have docked in Djibouti on 8 July. The news appeared in the Kerala press only on 15 July.
The ship was insured, and an insurance claim of 6.40 crores was paid to the Kerala Shipping Corporation (KSC) by the insurance company.
Various cases were filed in courts by relatives of missing crew members of the ship for tracing the ship. [6] Also the Kerala Shipping Corporation was unable to provide the addresses of the crew members, FIR, Inquiry report as per the right to information requests. So in July 2014 the Kerala State Information Commission asked the state government to submit a report within 30 days on the loss of the Kairali, on the basis of complaints received. [7]
MV Derbyshire was a British ore-bulk-oil combination carrier built in 1976 by Swan Hunter, as the last in the series of the Bridge-class sextet. She was registered at Liverpool and owned by Bibby Line.
Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that operate on the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships.
Kamarajar Port Limited, formerly Ennore Port, is located on the Coromandel Coast, Chennai about 18 km north of Chennai Port. It is the 12th major port of India, and the first port in India which is a public company. The Kamarajar Port Limited is the only corporatised major port and is registered as a company. Chennai Port Trust acquired around 67% stake of Centre in the Kamarajar Port Limited on 27 March 2020. The remaining 23 percent was already held by the Chennai Port Trust.
Events in the year 1979 in the Republic of India.
Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC) is a Government of Kerala undertaking that oversees the shipping and inland navigation matters of the state. It is headquartered in Kochi. It was formed in 1989 by the amalgamation of the Kerala Inland Navigation Corporation (KINCO) established in 1975, and the Kerala Shipping Corporation (KSC) established in 1974.
MS Berge Vanga was an ore-bulk-oil carrier with 227,912 tonnes deadweight (DWT). The ship was owned by Norwegian shipping company Sig. Bergesen d.y. and registered in Liberia. The ship had build number 300 at the Uljanik shipyard in the port city Pula in Croatia where it was built in 1974.
An ore-bulk-oil carrier, also known as combination carrier or OBO, is a ship designed to be capable of carrying wet or dry cargoes. The idea is to reduce the number of empty (ballast) voyages, in which large ships only carry a cargo one way and return empty for another. These are a feature of the larger bulk trades.
MV Iran Deyanat is an Iranian ship that was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden by 40 pirates with Kalashnikovs and RPGs on August 21, 2008. The crew of the ship numbered 29: a Pakistani captain, 14 Iranians including an engineer, 3 Indians, 2 Filipinos, and 10 Croatians. The ship was freed on October 10, and the crew was unharmed. The ship went underway bound to Oman and then to its final destination at Rotterdam.
The MV Delight is a Hong Kong-flagged grain carrier. It was attacked and hijacked in the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Yemen in the Horn of Africa by Somali pirates on 18 November 2008 at 2 p.m. The Delight, chartered by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, was carrying a cargo of 36,000 tonnes of wheat, and was heading for Iran's Bandar Abbas port. The 25 crew members are from India (7), Pakistan (2), Philippines (7), Iran (7), Ghana (2). The ship was released on 10 January 2009.
The MV Karagöl is an oil/chemical tanker owned and operated by the Istanbul based Turkish company YDC Denizcilik A.Ş., sailing under Turkish flag. The marine company is also partnered by the ruling AK Party's Istanbul deputy Hasan Kemal Yardımcı.
The MV Iceberg 1 is a Panama-flagged roll-on/roll-off cargo ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates on March 29, 2010. It was the longest-held hijacked ship until the Puntland Maritime forces released it and 22 crew members on 23 December 2012.
Valemax ships are a fleet of very large ore carriers (VLOC) owned or chartered by the Brazilian mining company Vale S.A. to carry iron ore from Brazil to European and Asian ports. With a capacity ranging from 380,000 to 400,000 tons deadweight, the vessels meet the Chinamax standard of ship measurements for limits on draft and beam. Valemax ships are the largest bulk carriers ever constructed, when measuring deadweight tonnage or length overall, and are amongst the longest ships of any type currently in service.
MV Vale Rio de Janeiro, owned by the Brazilian mining company Vale, is one of the world's largest very large ore carriers and a sister ship of Vale Brasil. Designed to carry iron ore from Brazil to Asia along the Cape route around South Africa, she is the second of seven 400,000-tonne very large ore carriers (VLOC) ordered by Vale from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in South Korea and twelve from Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries in China. While close to the specifications of Chinamax, these ships are generally referred to as Valemax vessels by Vale.
MV Vinalines Queen was a bulk carrier of the Vietnam National Shipping Lines, or Vinalines. On its last voyage the ship was travelling from Indonesia to China with more than 54,000 tonnes of nickel ore. The ship disappeared on 25 December 2011 and its fate was initially unknown. On 30 December 2011 a single survivor of its 23-member crew, Dau Ngoc Hung, was found by the British ship London Courage, after floating with a rescue vest for 5 days. He reported that the ship sank quickly in the early hours of the morning after capsizing to the left. It sank after passing the island of Luzon in very bad weather conditions in waters up to 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) deep.
Kollam Port is one of the historic ports situated 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) away from Downtown Kollam ,14 km north of Paravur and 24 km north of Varkala Town It is the second largest port in Kerala by volume of cargo handled and facilities. Located on the south-west coast of India, under the name of Quilon Port it became one of the country's most important trade hubs from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. Kollam was one of the five Indian ports visited by Ibn Battuta.
India–Somalia relations refers to the international relations that exist between India and Somalia.
MV American Courage is a diesel-powered lake freighter owned and operated by Grand River Navigation. This vessel was built in 1979 at Bay Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and included self-unloading technology.
MV Stellar Daisy was a South Korean-owned very large ore carrier (VLOC) that sank on March 31, 2017 in the South Atlantic off the coast of Uruguay while on a voyage from Brazil to China. She was the largest ship, by a factor of nearly 2 on gross tonnage, to be lost at sea.
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1979 | |
|---|---|
| Shipwrecks |
|
| Other incidents |
|
